TY - JOUR
T1 - Analyzing MOOC discussion forum messages to identify cognitive learning information exchanges
AU - Wong, Jian Syuan
AU - Pursel, Bart
AU - Divinsky, Anna
AU - Jansen, Bernard J.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
Copyright © 2015 by Association for Information Science and Technology
PY - 2015/1
Y1 - 2015/1
N2 - While discussion forums in online courses have been studied in the past, no one has proposed a model linking messages in discussion forums to a learning taxonomy, even though forums are widely used as educational tools in online courses. In this research, we view forums as information seeking events and use a keyword taxonomy approach to analyze a large amount of MOOC forum data to identify the types of learning interactions taking place in forum conversations. Using 51,761 forum messages from 8,169 forum threads from a MOOC with a 50,000+ enrollment, messages are analyzed based on levels of Bloom's Taxonomy to categorize the scholarly discourse. The results of this research show that interactions within MOOC discussion forums are a learning process with unique characteristics specific to particular cognitive learning levels. Results also imply that different types of forum interactions have characteristics relevant to particular learning levels, and the volume of higher levels of cognitive learning incidents increase as the course progresses.
AB - While discussion forums in online courses have been studied in the past, no one has proposed a model linking messages in discussion forums to a learning taxonomy, even though forums are widely used as educational tools in online courses. In this research, we view forums as information seeking events and use a keyword taxonomy approach to analyze a large amount of MOOC forum data to identify the types of learning interactions taking place in forum conversations. Using 51,761 forum messages from 8,169 forum threads from a MOOC with a 50,000+ enrollment, messages are analyzed based on levels of Bloom's Taxonomy to categorize the scholarly discourse. The results of this research show that interactions within MOOC discussion forums are a learning process with unique characteristics specific to particular cognitive learning levels. Results also imply that different types of forum interactions have characteristics relevant to particular learning levels, and the volume of higher levels of cognitive learning incidents increase as the course progresses.
KW - Anderson and Krathwohl's Taxonomy
KW - Bloom's Taxonomy
KW - Levels of cognitive learning
KW - MOOC discussion forums
KW - information seeking
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84987750313&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1002/pra2.2015.145052010023
DO - 10.1002/pra2.2015.145052010023
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84987750313
SN - 2373-9231
VL - 52
SP - 1
EP - 10
JO - Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology
JF - Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology
IS - 1
ER -